We all need a purpose. Purpose gives us an opportunity to flex our talents, connects us with others and helps to confirm our value. This makes existence a really lovely place to exist! If you feel dissatisfied in life, chances are you may be missing part of, or all of your purpose. The logical thing to do is then to try to find your thing – the thing you do that makes you purposeful. This sometimes works, but often keeps us in a perpetual state of searching and never quite finding that purpose.
Is this you?
We can think of purpose-seekers in two ways -”unconsciously impulsive” and “consciously misled”.
Types of Purpose-Seekers
Unconsciously Impulsive – Latching Onto Something That Masquerades as Purposefulness
There are people who feel stuck, or lost, but seeking purpose has not yet consciously occurred to them. They are focussed on their problems, not their solutions. They may be, or feel anxious, or depressed, without knowing why. They are impulsively reaching for a way to bring clarity to the confusion they find themselves in, or grappling for something, or someone that can fix it. This can show up in many ways, some constructive and some destructive.
Constructive examples can include a hyper-focus on: work and career, optimum health and wellbeing, or being the perfect parent, for example.
Destructive examples can include: addictions, problematic relationships, affiliation with unhelpful social communities, extreme mood swings, for example.
Some of these behaviours might feel purposeful, momentarily, but emptiness is often not far behind.
Consciously Misled – Consciously Seeking Purpose, but Never Find it
These people are hoping that they will find the calling in the world that will connect them meaningfully to something greater before they die, but are looking in the wrong place.they may have arrived at purposefulness because they have pursued lots of directions in life, each time finding themselves back where they started, with no answers. They then have an impending sense that they will reach the end of their life without ever having felt truly satisfied about their place in the world – an existential crisis. This crossroad-moment can typically come during mid-life, quarter life, or in later life.
To seek purpose, whether conscious, or unconscious and not find it is infuriating. We are all human and we can only withstand a certain number of failures before we begin to feel hopeless, broken, desperate, or resigned. There may be a sense that you are doing all the right things, but none of them are working.
So what are the unconsciously impulsive and the consciously misled purpose-seekers getting wrong?
Where Have we Been Going Wrong?
Your emotions are the water you actually swim in 24/7, not your achievements, or vices. Emotions are in your body, you feel them all the time and you cannot escape them. Achievements and vices are external, temporary, occasional and indirect. We don’t so much want to achieve, or reach the top of the castle, we want the feeling it gives us – security and belonging. Achieving your aspirations, or simply self-medicating, can give you these positive emotions, or at least, get you really close, but only momentarily.
It works the same way with “purpose” and “purposefulness”. Purpose is external, temporary, occasional and indirect. Purposefulness is a feeling, related to security and belonging. We all need to feel it.
What is the Difference That Makes a Difference?
Getting that you are secure and you belong, NOW… ALREADY, makes you feel this, as a baseline emotion, consistently. Jumping through hoops to feel a bit of it… not so much.
When the construct of your self-belief and identity shifts to being secure and belonging you feel it underlying all of your experiences, consistently.
This all happens in the realm of presence and self-awareness.
It is challenging to realise you were wrong about who you are and the way the world works, but far less challenging and far more fruitful than not doing so.
If you are interested in embarking on this new challenge, instead of continuing with your old challenge, let me know. It is not for everyone.
